Vilda News: Swedish Music Festival Goes...

Vilda News: Swedish Music Festival Goes Vegan-friendly

Here are some news that would make Morrison proud! Music festival Way Out West, which is held annually in Gothenburg, Sweden is taking one step closer to veganism. In 2012, the music festival made headlines when it announced that no meat would be served inside the festival area, which caused an outrage among many people and led to a local newspaper handing out meat outside the festival gates.

– Of course, there were a lot of negative reactions. There always is when you want to break a norm and meat is one of the most sensitive norms. But mostly that just says that we need to turn some things upsidedown, Patrick Fredriksson, founder and festival manager, told Dagens Nyheter.

At the time, the team behind the festival said that they wanted to give people who don’t eat meat more options than the standard one vegetarian meal to choose from, and that health, sustainability and animal rights all played a part in the decision to go vegetarian back in the day. The decision payed off as these changes resulted in an 25 % Co2-emission decrease.

Three years later, Way Out West has decided to take sustainability, health and animal rights one step further and is making this year’s festival milk-free and vegan friendly following the festival’s partnership with oat milk producer Oatly.

– It is not a strictly vegan festival, but the vast majority of milk products will be removed, Fredriksson said.

The partnership with Oatley also launches the campaign “72 hours without milk”, a campaign that aims to help the whole city of Gothenburg to go milk-free for at least 72 hours.

If you would like to visit the festival, it will be held August 13-15 and the line-up looks promising with artists such as Beck, Florence + the Machine, Pet Shop Boys, Patti Smith, Tyler, the Creator and many more.

Beauty & Marketing Coordinator

Anja has a background as hairstylist and makeupartist and works with marketing. She is a Swede living in Copenhagen with her two cats. Anja lives to travel, is a vegetarian, a bit of a crazy cat lady, and would go far for a good truffle pasta and Italian wine. She blogs at liveandletsgo.com